The Barton Hills Neighborhood Association is governed by a set of bylaws that were originally written in 1979 when the association was formed and incorporated. They’ve been amended and updated several times over the years – most recently in 1995, 2001, and 2004. Some things have changed since then, and our bylaws are due for another update.

The BHNA executive committee has reviewed and discussed the bylaws, and we’ve identified a list of 16 proposed changes. Most of these changes are relatively small and reflect things that either need to be cleaned up, modernized, or updated to align with the evolution of the organization and how we currently operate. A few of them are more substantial, and I’ll discuss those below.

Copies of both our current bylaws from 2004 and the updated bylaws that we’re proposing can be found on our website at https://bartonhills.org/about/bylaws/. The updated version includes numbered comments that show where each change has been made and a brief description. Please review these changes and provide any feedback that you may have to the BHNA executive committee by Oct 17th at officers@bartonhills.org. We’ll then finalize the proposed version, post it on both our website and the BHNA listserv for final review, and present it to our membership for approval at our fall general meeting on Oct 23rd.

As I mentioned above, many of the proposed changes are relatively minor such as adding clarification about our organization type and updating Robt. E. Lee Rd. to Azie Morton Rd. in our boundary description. We’ve also reallocated the duties of some of the officers to better balance the workload, clarified some existing duties, and added a few new ones, all of which reflect the way we presently are operating.

The biggest change we’re proposing is to change the unit of membership in the association from households to individuals. The current bylaws define a member as anyone age 18 and over in a dues- paying household, and we rely on whoever submits the annual membership form to list their spouse, roommates, adult kids, and other relatives or individuals who live in the household and qualify for membership. The problem is that people get in a hurry and don’t always fill out the form completely (or at all). In the meantime, people marry, divorce, move in or out, graduate, pass on, etc. and we can never really be sure how many members we actually have, which makes things like determining quorums for meetings almost impossible.

To remedy that, we’re proposing that every individual who wishes to be a voting member of the association sign up for their own membership. The folks who would be the most affected by this change are the couples where both individuals are active members of the association – their total household dues would double. While we certainly want to encourage membership and participation rather than discourage it, we feel that if we don’t increase annual dues (they’ve been $10 since at least 2004), most people would be agreeable to the idea of paying dues for each member.

Speaking of dues, one of the other changes we’re proposing is to allow the executive committee to set annual dues, subject to membership approval. Currently, annual dues are specified in the bylaws and require an amendment to change.

The final change of any real significance is a proposal to bump up our limit on consecutive terms served in a particular office from two to three. It’s difficult to find good people who are willing to serve, so the idea here is to let an officer stay in a position a little longer if they want to.
Again, please go to our website at https://bartonhills.org/about/bylaws/, review the changes we’re suggesting, and let us know what you think, good or bad, by Oct 17th at officers@bartonhills.org.
Thanks in advance for your feedback and thanks for supporting the BHNA!

The Greenbelt Guardians have two upcoming workdays this fall that we’d love for you to come out and help us with:

On Saturday September 29th, National Public Lands Day, we’ll be working at the Gus Fruh access from 8:00 AM until noon. The plan, assuming it quits raining before then, is to repave the entire switchback entry trail with decomposed granite and StaLok binder. It needed work before the recent rains and needs it worse now afterwards. We’ve done repair work on various sections over the years, but we haven’t repaved the entire trail since 2005. It’s a big job and we’ll need all the help we can get!

Those of you who’ve helped us do this kind of work before know that we usually mix the DG and StaLok resin on site. Now we can buy it already mixed! That will speed things up considerably, but we’ll still need lots of folks to help get a small mountain of material down the trail, spread, and pack it.

We’re late getting organized – Sept 29th is less than 2 weeks away now! Please let us know as soon as you can if you’re able to volunteer with us that day by sending an email to Stan Ostrum at stan@sostrum.com.

We’ll have some other tasks available (invasives removal, trash pickup, etc.) for those who can’t do trail repair, but our focus will be on getting the trail work completed. Breakfast tacos will be provided!

On Saturday November 3rd from 9:00 until noon, we’ll be working at the Homedale access. That will be the Austin Parks Foundation’s Fall It’s My Park Day, and our focus will be on invasive plant removal. Sign up will be online via APF’s GivePulse system in early October. We’ll send out a reminder with more details then, but please go ahead and put it on your calendar now!

If it sounds like a lot of hard work, well it is, but we have fun too. You’ll get a good workout, meet cool people, spend time in a beautiful setting, and have something to show for your efforts that makes the greenbelt experience better for everyone. We’re looking forward to getting out again and giving back and we hope that a lot of you can join us!

The following information was provided by the City of Austin and C3 Presents to help our neighborhood prepare for the upcoming Austin City Limits Music Festival:

ACL Music Festival will take place over two consecutive weekends: Friday, October 5th at 11am to Sunday, October 7th at 10pm and Friday, October 12th at 11am to Sunday, October 14th at 10pm. Please see the map on the following page for closures. Go to www.austintexas.gov/parkevents for interactive park access maps.

Barton Springs Pool is open at all times during normal hours. During festival days parking is protected at the south gate lot off Azie Morton Rd. for pool swimmers. In addition, Auditorium Shores will be open at all times for general and off-leash use.

Zilker Park, and all Austin parks, are non-smoking venues. Festival patrons will be directed to smoke outside the festival gates on the street. All passholders will be allowed to exit and re-enter the Festival grounds during the event. If you choose to smoke outside of the Festival, be mindful and responsibly discard cigarettes.

SCHEDULED CLOSURES
Barton Springs Road will be closed on festival show days to all vehicle traffic before Sterzing St. Cars must make a u-turn on Barton Springs Road at Sterzing Street. Making a right turn on Sterzing will be prohibited. This closure will reduce the amount of vehicles allowed into the neighborhoods and will create a safe crossing for pedestrians at Azie Morton Rd. and Barton Springs Road.

ROADS REOPEN OCT. 8-11
During this time, a portion of the areas in and surrounding Zilker Park will be accessible to the public including Barton Springs, Polo Field, the Botanical Gardens, and Austin Science and Nature Center.

PARKING
Due to the increase in restricted parking areas, appropriate signage will be installed earlier, as well as allowing for time for corrections prior to the event commencing. These signs are valid upon installation. Please adhere to the signage. The restricted parking area signage will stay UP between weekends. They remain valid during this time period.

DROP OFF ZONE
Drop off zone near Austin High.

SHUTTLES
Free festival shuttles run from downtown at Republic Square Park to the site! 2018 again features a dedicated entry gate for shuttle riders.

Shuttles are ADA compliant! Limited ADA parking first-come first-served is available via the Mopac side. All cars must have current valid ADA tags or plates displayed.

NEIGHBORHOOD PATROL
Dedicated APD officers are patrolling and ticketing in the entire event and surrounding area. Call in parking violations to the event operations center call-in line (see number below).

General Violations
Examples of what to call in….
o Parking within 30? of the approach to a stop sign.
o Parking or blocking within 15? of a fire hydrant.
o Parking left wheel to curb. (cars parked facing against traffic).
o If a car blocks YOUR driveway. Some neighbors may permit people to block their OWN driveway.
o Illegal vending/sales questions in the immediate festival area.
o REMINDER: Make a quick note of the vehicle’s color, make and model before you call!

Submit 311 requests for dockless devices that are blocking, impeding or causing safety issues in the City. This will allow the city to have a documented record of issues regarding operations. Dockless devices can be reported via the Austin 311 app using the ‘Other’ SR and mention bike/scooter. When reporting – it is helpful to have the exact location, and an image of the issue. The 311 APP is most helpful for this purpose as it allows you to geolocate the position of the complaint, and attach an image.

LOW FLYING AIRCRAFT
FAA aircraft information.
The San Antonio Flight Standards District Office (FSDO) is the office that would take complaints about safety violations. That number is (800) 292-2023.

The FAA does not, however, take calls regarding nuisance complaints. Nuisance/aircraft noise complaints would go to the Aviation Department. Stephen Dick stephen.dick@austintexas.gov would be the point of contact for those. Number is (512) 530-5541.